It would be nice to have a way to automatically log all deployments from that are done from Data Compare.
At our workplace we there are several individuals who sometimes do deployments of data from our staging-db to the live-db. It would be useful to have an overview somewhere where you can look up when the last deployment was, or who did the last deployment.

Maybe through a link with Confluence or JIRA. Or maybe even directly in the target-database.
For the latter it would suffice if a user could specify a query that would automatically be added to each deployment script.

It would be nice to have a way to automatically log all deployments from that are done from Data Compare.
At our workplace we there are several individuals who sometimes do deployments of data from our staging-db to the live-db. It would be useful to have an overview somewhere where you can look up when the last deployment was, or who did the last deployment.

Maybe through a link with Confluence or JIRA. Or maybe even directly in the target-database.
For the latter it would suffice if a user could specify a query that would automatically be added to each…

I'd like to store in a Data Compare project file a list of targets that I can select very easily. A target is server+database. It includes credentials as well. I don't want to re-enter them all the time.

I don't want to make many project files for them.

The same is true for a selection of tables and views. I compare very large database and I need different subsets of tables depending on the current task I'm working on.

Again, why a separate project file for them? I don't want that.

Given that I need to vary both target and data sets I would require a quadratic number of project files! And what if I need to change other settings. I then would need to update quadratically many project files for that.

This would be very valuable. I spend easily 25% of the time using the product configuring these things. And it's such an annoying kind of work.

I'd like to store in a Data Compare project file a list of targets that I can select very easily. A target is server+database. It includes credentials as well. I don't want to re-enter them all the time.

I don't want to make many project files for them.

The same is true for a selection of tables and views. I compare very large database and I need different subsets of tables depending on the current task I'm working on.

For some reason all of the servers offered in the dropdown list of servers are uppercase. Both recent and found on the network. Why is that the case? I entered them lowercase because I like them that way. Please leave my server names alone! :)

Don't call the columns target and source because it might just want to compare to data sets. Those names assume a direction which is confusing. I think this is a change made in version 12.

Also, the arrow on the top is barely recognizable as such now.

The new flat design is all the rage right now but it reduces usability because buttons are not visible as such. Removing colors from icons also is a major usability degradation.

Please do not optimize for design. Optimize for productivity. You customers are highly skilled and highly paid workers. Don't waste our time by making us search for buttons and features. Don't follow Microsoft in their misguided flat design.

Don't call the columns target and source because it might just want to compare to data sets. Those names assume a direction which is confusing. I think this is a change made in version 12.

Also, the arrow on the top is barely recognizable as such now.

The new flat design is all the rage right now but it reduces usability because buttons are not visible as such. Removing colors from icons also is a major usability degradation.

Please do not optimize for design. Optimize for productivity. You customers are highly skilled and highly paid workers. Don't waste our time…

We use multiple RedGate products, including SQL Source Control. Some data we choose to "Statically Link", so that it is always consistent. Examples would be when we map tables to Enum values in our codebase for instance and the contents of dbo.__MigrationHistory produced by EntityFramework.

I would be great when using SQL Data Compare and using a scripts folder as the source database, to have the option to only compare tables that have records in the Script Folder's Data folder ie:

C:/MyDatabase/Data/Schema.TableName.sql ...

At the moment I haven't found a good workflow that isn't painfully tedious to ensure that my SQL Data Compare Table Mapping options are in sync with my git repository when prepping for releasing our product to production.

We use multiple RedGate products, including SQL Source Control. Some data we choose to "Statically Link", so that it is always consistent. Examples would be when we map tables to Enum values in our codebase for instance and the contents of dbo.__MigrationHistory produced by EntityFramework.

I would be great when using SQL Data Compare and using a scripts folder as the source database, to have the option to only compare tables that have records in the Script Folder's Data folder ie:

C:/MyDatabase/Data/Schema.TableName.sql ...

At the moment I haven't found a good workflow that isn't painfully tedious to ensure that my…

Had to use version 11 today because of a show stopping bug (which I've reported), but 11 looks so much more user friendly and easier to use than 12. Can we possibly have a "retro" look and feel option for version 12?

I think this would make the feature a lot more useful: the reason for this is that when you go into tables and views it compares FIRST, so if you wanted to change that setting then either you now have a bunch of tables to go and include that you wanted to add, or you now have to go find a bunch of tables that you didn't want to include and take them out.

In SQL data compare, If I have two schemas (dbo and test) in some database, and only map the test schema between the databases to be compared, when it comes to table selection, it shows all the tables in the dbo schema as unmapped. That is true, but I'd rather not have to see them. Suggestion: Hide the tables in unmapped schemas.

Often I need to mark a set of changes where the changes are not all in the same (or visible) columns. As a result, using the down arrow to go to the next record skips a lot of records that I need to mark.

This "smart" feature doesn't seem to be very useful when I'm working like this - can we have an option to turn it off, so that the cursor keys work just as they would in Excel, without trying to take me to the next change?

When I deploy my changes to my script files the order of the records is slightly different and therefore shows incorrect differences when comparing the files using a comparison tool (Beyond Compare 4).
The two attached files show as having two differences. The only actual change is for the record with the id '8e0202a2-aab5-4b68-91d9-3575498dff66'.
The change for the other record is only showing because the order of the data is different.
This happens consistently and can become quite confusing and annoying when this happens for multiple tables or where there are a large number of changes for a table.
The ordering of the data should be consistent.

When I deploy my changes to my script files the order of the records is slightly different and therefore shows incorrect differences when comparing the files using a comparison tool (Beyond Compare 4).
The two attached files show as having two differences. The only actual change is for the record with the id '8e0202a2-aab5-4b68-91d9-3575498dff66'.
The change for the other record is only showing because the order of the data is different.
This happens consistently and can become quite confusing and annoying when this happens for multiple tables or where there are a large number of changes for a table.
The…

For columns having differences yet where the start of the difference is longer than the viewing area:

I'd like to see the start of the difference with some context. So, say you have 100 characters to work with in the display. Show 20 characters before the difference, then the next 80 characters, whatever they are
The old 80/20 rule. Given 100% of space, show 20% before the diff then use the remaining 80% for whatever is left. Show as much of the difference as you can. So, if you have 100 characters to work with and the column is 200 characters long:
1. If the difference is within 20 characters of the start of the column, show from the start
2. If the difference is within 20 characters of the end of the column, show from the end
3. If the difference is in the middle, show 20 characters from the beginning of the difference and the first 80 characters of the difference
Nice to have: show the offset of the beginning of the difference as an integer relative to 0. Also show the length of the first difference if the whole thing doesn't fit

For columns having differences yet where the start of the difference is longer than the viewing area:

I'd like to see the start of the difference with some context. So, say you have 100 characters to work with in the display. Show 20 characters before the difference, then the next 80 characters, whatever they are
The old 80/20 rule. Given 100% of space, show 20% before the diff then use the remaining 80% for whatever is left. Show as much of the difference as you can. So, if you have 100 characters to work with and the column is 200…

Unless I'm missing it, there doesn't seem to be a way to select a default open mode in Data Compare (or SQL Compare) version 12. It always opens to a new Compare Project. Most of the time I'm working with saved projects so it takes extra steps to do what I want. Older versions of Data/SQL compare used to let you pick how you want to start the application.